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[...] for now, merchants say, its construction is driving away business and a recently announced 10-month delay until completion could further the damage. Slow-going on construction of the Chinatown station at Stockton and Washington streets has pushed the projected start of subway service back from early 2019 to November of that year, an independent project monitor said. A 10-month delay on a 10-year project beneath a busy city may not seem like much, but it’s distressing for merchants like Andrew Yu of Mei’s Groceries, located less than a block from where the Chinatown station is being built. The $1.6 billion Central Subway was championed by Chinatown interests, who argued that it would help make up for the loss of the Embarcadero Freeway, which had provided easy access to the neighborhood before it was demolished after the 1989 Loma Prieta earthquake. Unlike the other two new subway stations, which are being built by closing the street, digging a big hole then covering it, the Chinatown station is essentially being mined, using the same technique used to carve out the fourth bore of the Caldecott Tunnel. The technique allows Stockton Street to remain open while excavation goes on underneath, and permits construction of a grander station with curved archways as opposed to more typical rectangular box architecture, said John Funghi, Central Subway project manager. Efforts to catch up have been unsuccessful, according to the independent monitor who reports to the Federal Transit Administration, which is providing most of the funding for the subway. At the end of this month, in another effort to speed the opening, MTA officials, contractor Tutor Perini and Federal Transit Administration representatives will meet to explore ideas. Among the things they’ll discuss, Funghi said, is permitting testing and certification to start at the south end of the subway line, south of Market Street, while construction continues on the north end. After finishing the big hole bottoming out recently — and planting an American flag at the bottom of the big hole to mark the occasion — crews started pouring concrete for the station floor this week. At the south end, near the Caltrain station on Fourth and King streets, workers have installed concrete slabs that will support rails leading into the subway beneath the densest parts of downtown San Francisco.

"The campaign underscores how truck owners are essentially dumping cash all over America's highways from all the hidden costs required in maintaining a private fleet," Ryder's Karen Jones tells"Marketing Daily."